Is Ben Affleck The Alpha Male On The Set Of His New Movie ‘Triple Frontier’?

Two weeks. A month, tops, in some cases. That’s usually how long in advance we’re informed of any Hollywood press tour heading our way. But five days? That’s probably a first for us when we heard Ben Affleck, Charlie Hunnam, and Garrett Hedlund were coming to the Little Red Dot to promote of their Netflix actioner Triple Frontier. We were told about it on a Monday and they were here on Friday (on International Women's Day).

Stealthy and swift. Just like the characters in Triple Frontier — five Special Forces veterans (Affleck, Hunnam, Hedlund, Oscar Isaac, and Pedro Pascal) use their special skills to steal US$75 million (S$101 mil) from a South American drug cartel (think The Expendables meet Narcos). If you’ve seen the trailer for the JC Chandor-helmed thriller, the heist is a cinch; it’s the getaway that’s a little tricky… logistically and morally.

For Affleck, Hunnam, Hedlund, and producer Chuck Rove, Singapore was their last (-minute) stop in a whirlwind trip that had taken them to LA, New York, Madrid, and Mumbai. Barely hours after arriving here, they were rushed off to a fan event at The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, where they gamely dazzled the crowds by signing autographs and taking selfies. If they were jet-lagged, they did a bang-up job hiding it. (Great acting!)

And early next morning, Affleck & co. were holed up in a conference room, fielding questions from curious journos about Triple Frontier. Here are some of the interesting things we heard during the press meet…

Triple Frontier (M18) is now streaming on Netflix.

Photos: Netflix, Ealbert Ho

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Ben Affleck is not the leader of the band

“Chuck is the alpha male! Both were fun sets. I had a great time. Obviously, Gal [Gadot] was on Justice League, so that mitigated some of the pure testosterone. But really this movie isn’t so much about testosterone and masculinity; it’s rooted in a factual truth that the vast majority of the Special Forces are men. So it’s natural to tell a story about men. [In the Special Forces], there is no tremendous emphasis on hierarchy and who’s tougher than the other. They taught me to understand that true strength comes from passion, empathy, and teamwork. [That’s the] lesson I took away from this movie. But Chuck was the alpha.” — Ben Affleck, being modest, when asked who is the alpha male on the sets of Justice League and Triple Frontier; Chuck Roven is a producer on both movies

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Charlie Hunnam still needs acting lessons... sometimes

“The military advisors are always watching, very rarely do they tell us, in terms of acting, how we should or shouldn’t play a scene. But there’s a moment in the film where my character sustains an injury, and, of course, in true Hollywood style, I was over-acting the moment. One advisor came over and shared a couple of experiences where he himself had sustained massive injuries. [He said,] ‘This is the reality: you need to hold it together.” It’s amazing to get that kind of insight [from the advisors] in real time to make sure we were handling the situation correctly.” — Charlie Hunnam on receiving acting tips from his military consultants

“While I understand the temptation to draw analogies between my own life and [the lives of the Special Forces operatives], I’m a little bit too embarrassed to liken my trouble getting coffee in the morning to being deployed overseas.” — Ben Affleck is no warrior in real life

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Garrett Hedlund was sent to boot camp by Ang Lee

“In the last eight films I’ve done, I’ve played soldiers in six [of them]. One, in particular, was with Ang Lee, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, where he put us through a two-week boot camp with Navy Seals… It was quite an intense experience. Ang had said [to the instructors], ‘I want you to treat them like a stick, bend them until they are just about to crack and then put them together.’” — Garrett Hedlund shares a favourite (faux) war story

“We certainly explore that question whether or not the mission would have unravelled the way it does in the movie if there were more gender equality in it or if we had a woman’s point of view… One of the things that precipitated the [chain of events in the movie] is greed and that is certainly not exclusive to men. It’s a good question, one for us to ponder.” — Charlie Hunnam on whether Triple Frontier is a celebration of toxic masculinity in the #MeToo era

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A movie 10 years in the making

Triple Frontier was originally set up 10 years ago with Kathryn Bigelow, as a follow up to the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker. When she went off to make Zero Dark Thirty, the project went through a revolving door of actors and directors. The long-gestating period is a good thing, said Affleck. “It’s usually a sign that there’s something worthwhile [in the script] because people keep coming back to it. [Because] when a movie is not well conceived, it’s easier to let it go and walk away from it.”